单选题

U. S. to Start $3.2 Billion Child Health Study in January

    A study that will cost $3.2 billion and last more than two decades to track the health of 100,000 U.S. children from before birth to age 21 will be launched in January, U. S. health officials said on Friday.

    Officials from the U.S.government’s National Institutes of Health said they hope the study, to be conducted at 105 locations throughout theUnited States, can help identify early-life influences that affect later development, with the goal of learning new ways to treat or prevent illness.

    The study will examine hereditary and environmental factors such as exposure to certain chemicals that affect health.

    Researchers will collect genetic and biological samples from people in the study as well as samples from the homes of the women and their babies including air,

water, dust and materials used to construct their residences, the NIH said.

    Officials said more than $200 million has been spent already and the study is projected to cost $3.2 billion.

    “We anticipate that in the long term1，what we learn from the study will result in a significant savings in the nation’s health care costs,” Dr. Duane Alexander, who heads the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, told reporters.

    The study will begin in January when theUniversityofNorth Carolinaand the Mount Sinai School of Medicine inNew Yorkstart signing up2 pregnant women whose babies will then be followed to age 21.

    Some of the early findings will be about factors behind pre-term birth3, which has become more common in recent years, according to Dr. Peter Scheidt of the NIH, who heads the study.

    The people taking part will be from rural, urban and suburban areas, from all income and educational levels and from all racial groups, the NIH said.

 

词汇：

hereditary /hɪ"redɪt(ə)rɪ/ adj.遗传的

　　

注释：

1.in the long term：从长远说来

2.sign up：使报名从事

3.pre-term birth：早产

 

Researchers will collect all the following EXCEPT____

A:genetic samples from people in the study B:biological samples from people in the study C:samples from the homes of the women and their babies D:samples of air and water from hospitals

Plato asked "What is man" and St Augustine asked "Who am I’ A new breed of criminals has a novel answer: "I am you!" Although impostors have existed for ages, the growing frequency and cost of identity theft is worrisome. Around 10m Americans are victims annually, and it is the leading consumer-fraud complaint over the past five years. The cost to businesses was almost $50 billion, and to consumers $5 billion, in 2002, the most recent year that America’s Federal Trade Commission collected figures.
After two recent, big privacy disasters, people and politicians are calling for action. In February, ChoicePoint, a large data-collection agency, began sending out letters warning 145,000 Americans that it had wrongly provided fraudsters with their personal details, including Social Security numbers. Around 750 people have already spotted fraudulent activity. And on February 25th, Bank of America revealed that it lost data tapes that contain personal information on over lm government employees, including some Senators. Although accident and not illegality is suspected, all must take precautions against identity theft.
Faced with such incidents, state and national lawmakers are calling for new regulations, including over companies that collect and sell personal information. As an industry, the firms—such as ChoicePoint, Acxiom, LexisNexis and Westlaw—are largely unregulated. They have also grown enormous. For example, ChoicePoint was founded in 1997 and has acquired nearly 60 firms to amass databases with 19 billion records on people. It is used by insurance firms, landlords and even police agencies.
California is the only state, with a law requiring companies to notify individuals when their personal information has been compromised—which made ChoicePoint reveal the fraud (albeit five months after it was noticed, and after its top two bosses exercised stock options). Legislation to make the requirement a federal law is under consideration. Moreover, lawmakers say they will propose that rules governing credit bureaus and medical companies are extended to data-collection firms. And alongside legislation, there is always litigation. Already, ChoicePoint has been sued for failing to safeguard individuals’ data.
Yet the legal remedies would still be far looser than in Europe, where identity theft is also a menace, though less frequent and costly. The European Data Protection Directive, implemented in 1998, gives people the right to access their information, change inaccuracies, and deny permission for it to be shared. Moreover, it places the cost of mistakes on the companies that collect the data, not on individuals. When the law was put in force, American policymakers groaned that it was bad for business. But now they seem to be reconsidering it,
ChoicePoint revealed the fraud because

A:its top two bosses wanted to exercise stock options, B:it was required by local legislation. C:it was sued for failing to safeguard individual’s data. D:medical companies are also allowed to collect data.

Text 4

Plato asked "What is man" and St Augustine asked "Who am I’ A new breed of criminals has a novel answer: "I am you!" Although impostors have existed for ages, the growing frequency and cost of identity theft is worrisome. Around 10m Americans are victims annually, and it is the leading consumer-fraud complaint over the past five years. The cost to businesses was almost $50 billion, and to consumers $5 billion, in 2002, the most recent year that America’s Federal Trade Commission collected figures.
After two recent, big privacy disasters, people and politicians are calling for action. In February, ChoicePoint, a large data-collection agency, began sending out letters warning 145,000 Americans that it had wrongly provided fraudsters with their personal details, including Social Security numbers. Around 750 people have already spotted fraudulent activity. And on February 25th, Bank of America revealed that it lost data tapes that contain personal information on over lm government employees, including some Senators. Although accident and not illegality is suspected, all must take precautions against identity theft.
Faced with such incidents, state and national lawmakers are calling for new regulations, including over companies that collect and sell personal information. As an industry, the firms—such as ChoicePoint, Acxiom, LexisNexis and Westlaw—are largely unregulated. They have also grown enormous. For example, ChoicePoint was founded in 1997 and has acquired nearly 60 firms to amass databases with 19 billion records on people. It is used by insurance firms, landlords and even police agencies.
California is the only state, with a law requiring companies to notify individuals when their personal information has been compromised—which made ChoicePoint reveal the fraud (albeit five months after it was noticed, and after its top two bosses exercised stock options). Legislation to make the requirement a federal law is under consideration. Moreover, lawmakers say they will propose that rules governing credit bureaus and medical companies are extended to data-collection firms. And alongside legislation, there is always litigation. Already, ChoicePoint has been sued for failing to safeguard individuals’ data.
Yet the legal remedies would still be far looser than in Europe, where identity theft is also a menace, though less frequent and costly. The European Data Protection Directive, implemented in 1998, gives people the right to access their information, change inaccuracies, and deny permission for it to be shared. Moreover, it places the cost of mistakes on the companies that collect the data, not on individuals. When the law was put in force, American policymakers groaned that it was bad for business. But now they seem to be reconsidering it,
ChoicePoint revealed the fraud because

A:its top two bosses wanted to exercise stock options, B:it was required by local legislation. C:it was sued for failing to safeguard individual’s data. D:medical companies are also allowed to collect data.

We volunteered to collect money to help the ______ of the earthquake.

A:victims B:folks C:fellows D:villagers

Citizen Scientists

Understanding how nature responds to climate change will require monitoring key life cycle event-flowering, the appearance of leaves, the first frog calls of the spring all around the world.
But ecologists can’t be everywhere so they’re turning to non-scientists, sometimes called citizen scientists, for help.
Climate scientists are not present everywhere. Because there are so many places in the world and not enough scientists to observe all of them, they’re asking for your help in observing signs of climate change across the world. The citizen scientist movement encourages ordinary people too observe a very specific research interest--birds, trees, flowers budding, etc. and send their observations to a giant database to be observed by professional scientists. This helps a small number of scientists track a large amount of data that they would never be able to gather on their own. Much like citizen journalists helping large publications cover a hyper-local beat, citizen scientists are ready for the conditions where they live. All that’s needed to become one is a few minutes each day or each week to gather data and send it in.
A group of scientists and educators launched an organization last year called the National Phenology Network. "Phenology" is what scientists call the study of the timing of events in nature.
One of the group’s first efforts relies on scientists and non-scientists alike to collect data about plant flowering and leafing every year. The program, called Project BudBurst, collects life cycle data on a variety of common plants from across the United States. People participating in the project which is open to everyone record their observations on the Project BudBurst website.
"People don’t have to be plant experts, they just have to look around and see what’s in their neighborhood," says Jennifer Schwartz, an education consultant with the project. "As we collect this data, we’ll be able to make an estimate of how plants and communities of plants and animals will respond as the climate changes./
Ecologists turn to non-scientist citizens for help because they need them______.

A:to provide their personal life cycles B:to observe the life cycle of plants C:to collect data of the life cycle of living things D:to teach children knowledge about climate change

Citizen Scientists

Understanding how nature responds to climate change will require monitoring key life cycle event-flowering, the appearance of leaves, the first frog calls of the spring all around the world.
But ecologists can’t be everywhere so they’re turning to non-scientists, sometimes called citizen scientists, for help.
Climate scientists are not present everywhere. Because there are so many places in the world and not enough scientists to observe all of them, they’re asking for your help in observing signs of climate change across the world. The citizen scientist movement encourages ordinary people too observe a very specific research interest--birds, trees, flowers budding, etc. and send their observations to a giant database to be observed by professional scientists. This helps a small number of scientists track a large amount of data that they would never be able to gather on their own. Much like citizen journalists helping large publications cover a hyper-local beat, citizen scientists are ready for the conditions where they live. All that’s needed to become one is a few minutes each day or each week to gather data and send it in.
A group of scientists and educators launched an organization last year called the National Phenology Network. "Phenology" is what scientists call the study of the timing of events in nature.
One of the group’s first efforts relies on scientists and non-scientists alike to collect data about plant flowering and leafing every year. The program, called Project BudBurst, collects life cycle data on a variety of common plants from across the United States. People participating in the project which is open to everyone record their observations on the Project BudBurst website.
"People don’t have to be plant experts, they just have to look around and see what’s in their neighborhood," says Jennifer Schwartz, an education consultant with the project. "As we collect this data, we’ll be able to make an estimate of how plants and communities of plants and animals will respond as the climate changes./
What is the final purpose of Project BudBurst

A:To study when plants will have their first buds. B:To find out the types of plants in the neighborhood. C:To collect life cycle data on a variety of common plants from across the United States. D:To investigate how plants and animals will respond as the climate changes.


? ?下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题，每道题后面有4个选项。
{{B}}第一篇{{/B}}

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? {{B}}Urban Rainforest{{/B}}
? ?On the west side of the island of Manhattan in New York City, tree by tree, leaf by leaf, a 2,500 square foot sector of the Central African Republic’s Dzanga Ndoki Rainforest has been transported to, or recreated at, the American Museum of Natural History’s new hall of biodiversity. When the hall opens this May, visitors will visit one of the world’s biggest and most accurate reproduction of one of nature’s most threatened creations.
? ?To bring the rainforest to New York, a team of nearly two dozen scientists — the largest collecting expedition the museum has ever organized for an exhibit — spent five weeks in the African rainforest collecting soil, plants, and leaves: recording and documenting species; studying trees; shooting videotape and still photos: and interviewing local people. "This area has been explored very little," says Hoel Cracraft who estimates that the museum will eventually collect 150 to 180 mammals, more than 300 species of birds, hundreds of butterflies, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of organisms. The exhibition may even have produced a special prize — scientists suspect they have uncovered several new species.
? ?To give the forest a sense of realness, the back wall of the exhibit is an enormous ,video screen, sounds will come out from hidden speakers, and plans even call for forest smells. Computer controls will vary the effects so that no two walkthroughs will ever be exactly the same.
? ?After the team returned to New York, the forest was reproduced with the help of the computer. Computer Modelling programmes plotted distances and special relationships. Artists studied photos and brought what they saw to life. Plaster trees were made. Recreated animals began to stand in the rainforest of the hall. Flying creatures will hang from the ceiling. The light in the forest — one of the exhibit’s cleverest re-creations — will seem real. Long tube lights will have the correct colour and temperature to produce a natural effect. The plants and animals exhibited throughout the hall exist naturally in a perfect balance — remove one, and the whole is imperfect if not endangered. The exhibit is proof to the hope that the world’s rainforests will never exist solely as a carefully preserved artifact.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? {{B}}Urban Rainforest{{/B}}
? ?On the west side of the island of Manhattan in New York City, tree by tree, leaf by leaf, a 2,500 square foot sector of the Central African Republic’s Dzanga Ndoki Rainforest has been transported to, or recreated at, the American Museum of Natural History’s new hall of biodiversity. When the hall opens this May, visitors will visit one of the world’s biggest and most accurate reproduction of one of nature’s most threatened creations.
? ?To bring the rainforest to New York, a team of nearly two dozen scientists — the largest collecting expedition the museum has ever organized for an exhibit — spent five weeks in the African rainforest collecting soil, plants, and leaves: recording and documenting species; studying trees; shooting videotape and still photos: and interviewing local people. "This area has been explored very little," says Hoel Cracraft who estimates that the museum will eventually collect 150 to 180 mammals, more than 300 species of birds, hundreds of butterflies, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of organisms. The exhibition may even have produced a special prize — scientists suspect they have uncovered several new species.
? ?To give the forest a sense of realness, the back wall of the exhibit is an enormous ,video screen, sounds will come out from hidden speakers, and plans even call for forest smells. Computer controls will vary the effects so that no two walkthroughs will ever be exactly the same.
? ?After the team returned to New York, the forest was reproduced with the help of the computer. Computer Modelling programmes plotted distances and special relationships. Artists studied photos and brought what they saw to life. Plaster trees were made. Recreated animals began to stand in the rainforest of the hall. Flying creatures will hang from the ceiling. The light in the forest — one of the exhibit’s cleverest re-creations — will seem real. Long tube lights will have the correct colour and temperature to produce a natural effect. The plants and animals exhibited throughout the hall exist naturally in a perfect balance — remove one, and the whole is imperfect if not endangered. The exhibit is proof to the hope that the world’s rainforests will never exist solely as a carefully preserved artifact.
How did the museum collect the data in the Central African Republic?

A:It sent a large team of scientists there. B:It cooperated with many African scientists. C:It recruited local people to collect mammals, etc. D:It sent cameramen to shoot videotapes.

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